WOYWW 857

 SUNNY, THANK YOU FOR THE SUNSHINE BOUQUET

Hi everyone, welcome to another WOYWW linking up at Sarah's, a real sunny high spot in what's been a dark and dreary week here in Wales!

It's been another busy old week, I haven't done that much sewing but did have a request for some bunting, which I've not made for ages so that was nice.

The pivot function on my machine makes putting on the letters a breeze!

For a neighbour's new grand-daughter and yes, the name is spelled correctly!! They wanted pink and girly so that's what they've got.

I was searching for something in the Christmas box, everything got dragged out:

I'm going to make a robin and angel with a bit of free machining so of course, I needed some new stash...cough....

I was quite restrained don't you think? Some pristine white felt and some sparkly tulle, we'll see how my idea pans out - it might be one of those projects that's only great in my head!

I've been making more bits for the Christmas fairs:

A box of reindeer bits!

That's a bit clearer eh? I have to sew the white ear inners onto the fawn ear outers and then we can start assembling.  The things you do eh?

And my dear friends are still making some fab items too:

Sue made these fab tree decorations. What's the collective noun for Father Christmasses then.....a Ho Ho Ho? I'm sure you'll have better suggestions lol!

I've messaged Neet a couple of times but haven't heard anything back. I do hope she's ok - if you're reading this Neet, then we're all sending you hugs and lots of love. Get better soon xxx

Have a great week everyone!

WOYWW 856

 YOU GOTTA HAVE FRIENDS...

Hi everyone, welcome to another week of desky nonsense and goings on. Link up over at Sarah's if you want to see what all the other Deskers are getting up to as well. Talking of which, Neet is in Cardiology in hospital where they're trying to reduce the oedema in her legs, poor thing has had Covid as well. If you're reading this Neet, we send you huge hugs and hope you're home very very soon xx

It's been all go this week. I've been using up some fabric to get stuff made and ready for fairs:

The chickens are on the rampage again!

This fabric makes me smile, it's always popular so hopefully this lot won't hang around for long!  

I had to take some publicity shots of my crafts for the upcoming big fair on 13th November, so I set up the JanCave like a mini studio:

And set to....I did enjoy making the photos fun!

Those gnomes look like a gang of heavies don't they? And as for the rest, well frankly there's been too much Gluhwein swilling around lol! Thanks to all the fab RNLI crafters who have been working so hard, they've been stalwarts.

My mate Sue bought a few things around yesterday to add to the pile:

Animals made from face cloths, they're sooo cute!

Baubles made from fabric...

And the most beautiful and delicate macrame angels. Thanks Sue, you're so clever, these will look amazing on the stall at the next few fairs xxxx

I send items off to a Ukraine Charity, some are used to make bags of toiletries or shoe boxes to be sent out in humanitarian convoys, others are sold to buy necessary goods to fill those bags and boxes. Yesterday I found that some items had been bought and sent away....to the Falkland Islands!! My stuff has gone round the world but this is a first. Thanks to Ali, the UK Co-ordinator for letting me know this has happened, it made my day!

Hope you all have a great week xxxx

WOYWW 855

 COME BACK AND FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED...

Hi there lovely Deskers, another week has whizzed past and quite a lot has been achieved! I last heard from Neet a couple of days ago, she was waiting to be transferred to Cardiology, I hope that has happened and she’s feeling better. Fingers crossed.

So a quick run through my finishing up of projects which stemmed from a tidy up of the JanCave.

I put all those lovely quilt squares together and am in the process of quilting, just stitch in the ditch. I put a pink backing and grey border, it looked really sweet.

I've had this fabric cut out for ages but it kept getting pushed to the back of the queue. This is all done and dusted now, I like it very much!

And then I saw a YouTube tutorial on a simple way to make bowl cosies that didn't involve templates so thought I'd have a go. It was easy and quick to make:

One side....

...and the other! It's completely reversible but I think I'd quilt the fabrics next time to give a bit of rigidity.

There's been more knitting of Father Christmas Choc orange covers and here I'm putting in some red shirring elastic so the orange doesn't fall out of his bottom!!

Sounds daft but it works well!
And I'll leave you with a pic of the flowers G bought me two weeks ago (from the Co op), they have been absolutely glorious:

Luscious colours, they've been getting more lovely as they develop. I have really enjoyed them!

Short and sweet today, hope you have a cracking week!

WOYWW 854

 BITS AND PIECES

Hi there all you lovely folks who turn up to read my dose of weekly nonsense, hope you're all keeping well and happy! These weeks are whizzing by aren't they? This one has been full of another craft fair, dealing in chocolate (don't ask) and knitting furiously. Before I go any further, for those of you who don't know, Neet is in hospital and will be in for a fortnight. Obviously we can't do flowers as they don't allow them in wards anymore but I'm sure that messages and cards will help cheer her up.

No pic of the JanCave as the only thing I've done is pin that baby quilt front to the backing fabric. But there's been lots of other stuff going on:

Our guest room has more Christmas than The Range! I haven't knitted all these myself but after last Saturday's craft fair (£125) I needed to take stock for the next ones which are the biggies. My RNLI Craft Whatsapp was red hot when one lady found that Terry's Chocolate Oranges had gone down in price to £1 each, a substantial saving on the precious prices. So she got me 20! I'm trying not to look at them lol!

Every part of the house seems to be covered in yarn - I have very understanding menfolk!

I'd made 10 of these, wonder if you could work out what they were?

You're dreadful you lot......

They're Gnome Gnoses of course!! I'm making a few more for an order but already had some made up:

They just make me smile and are brilliant for using up scraps of yarn.

Bald gnomes and Father Christmases and it's not every day you type a sentence like that....

Plus Polar Bears, someone ordered five:

Cute huh? I changed the Santa Hat to a beanie, I liked it better!

I'd ordered some more sparkly red yarn but clicked on the wrong weight, so ended up with Chunky instead of DK. I found a simple crochet hat pattern on YouTube and have enjoyed starting this:

A few rows of increase then just keep going round and round, it's making a nice change from knitting small items. The hat won't be big enough for me ( I have a HUGE head!) but it might make a nice thing to send off to the Gift of Warmth charity.

Sorry if some of you were hoping to buy some yarn soon, I think I might have cornered the market.....

Have a great week!

WOYWW 853

 GIMME SOME OF THAT CHOCOLATE!

Hi there lovely Deskers, hope you've had a good week! Here we are again linking up over at Sarah's for another round of Desky snooping. While I remember, Eva and Robyn, your messages about wanting to contribute to Julia's fund was so very lovely of you but it would have been a bit tricky coordinating payments from abroad. I included your wishes in with the gifts and I know Julia and Mr D were so appreciative. Thank you again xx

Another busy week has rolled by, this is what was on my desk last Friday:

There's been a lot of Ferrero Rocher stuffing going on lol! Hats, gnomes, bears, snowmen, robins, penguins, you name it they've had a FR stuffed up 'em *grin*  

I was trying to explain to Lynne about my quick and dirty method of cutting holly leaves out of felt, here's a pic, hope it makes sense!

I cut out triangles and then each point gets snipped to form three leaves. I know they're not exactly holly leaves but they're good enough for a decoration on the Christmas Pud FR covers!

We rolled out the stall on Saturday:

The first craft market of the season. It was a lovely sociable morning and we had a brisk trade.

And it definitely wasn't too early for Christmas! We sold a lot of everything and made £182.50 which took us over the £11k mark, hooray! Everything else is just a bonus now - I've got another fair this Saturday and some of the RNLI ladies who helped me knit a lot of the items are coming to help, so that should be fun.

In the JanCave, I fancied doing something different so found the fabrics that G's sister donated to me (brand new FQs she found in a charity shop)

I put a couple of stash fabrics in there as well and am doing a simple baby quilt of squares.

It turned out ok, now for the backing and border but goodness knows when that's going to be done!

Have a good week, enjoy the autumn weather and may your crafting be stress free xxx

WOYWW 852

 SWEET AS CANDY

Hi there, all you lovely deskers, hope you've had a good week. It's been another full one here, we've been getting out and about and enjoying the sunshine. It's been busy craftwise too, not just mine but coordinating what others are doing for the RNLI fundraising. Talking of which, the collection tin in the harbour cafe yielded another £325 so I was chuffed with that, only another £95 to reach the £11k, woohoo!

I've been using my most recent fabric purchases:

Both fabrics were lovely to work with...

I love that elephant print, the purple spotty was perfect with it.

Halfway through another glasses case - I was pleased with the warm olivey-grey as the lining, it tones really well. I like this cherry blossom fabric too, so pretty.

I saw some cheap cotton FQs so got some to make Halloween bags as there's two fairs in the next two weeks:

Simple drawstring bags with black cotton linings and ribbon ties (both of which were donated to me, so kind and really keeps the costs down!)

I had a bit of a count up/stock take of the Christmas things made so far, and my guest room now looks like this:

There's a fair few things now but it's hard to know exactly how many to make. All I know is I might have sufficient Ferrero Rochers......

They're not all for me, lol! I've got to distribute some to the kind gals who are knitting away at the moment. A friend went to CostCo and got these, they were a bit cheaper than elsewhere. It's just as well that I'm not that keen on these isn't it? 

And while I'll be chatting with a friend online, I have some snowmen sewing up to do:

Sewing on the carrot noses is the fiddliest bit for sure!

As many of you will have heard by now, Julia and Barry had a real shock at the weekend when their worksheds and business premises burned to the ground - thankfully no-one was hurt but they've lost everything. Thank you to the deskers who contacted me and donated so we could send some flowers and another little surprise - I'm aware that I couldn't contact everyone so apologies if I missed you out, I wanted to get something organised quickly.  Julia was very touched to know how much love and support they have but then, that's what WOYWW is all about isn't it? The crafting is almost secondary now!
Take care and have a good week xxxxxx

WOYWW 851

 I PICKED ONE PUMPKIN FROM THE MEADOW THAT NIGHT...

That's been a week of two halves! Up to and including Saturday was like Noah's flood and since then it has been the most gloriously sunny autumn weather.  As I'm feeling better now, we've been out and about, of which more later.

The craft room is a tip!

I've still got craft fair stuff ready to go except two fairs have been pulled (by the organisers not me) but I'm not going to unpack anything. I made a start on the Starry Night fabric.

I like both these spotty liners so am using them both!

I've got these adjustable straps down off pat now but they did cause swearing in the early days lol!

And the little pumpkin beanies for the baby unit turned out well!

Last Sunday was a gorgeous day so we went out bright and early and headed towards Laugharne, I'd not been there for years.

The castle was looking striking in the sunshine! It was free entry as part of the Cadw heritage open day scheme so that was a bonus.

There was a possible alternative to the JanCave in a lookout hut on the ramparts:

I could while away an hour or two in there but don't know how much work I'd get done with that view!

You can't really go in any rooms but it was interesting to see how a medieval castle was transformed into a Tudor Mansion in the 16th C. They also put in the knot garden you can see in the pic. The gateway gave a view out onto this historic town:

We had a really nice mooch around.

But most people associate Laugharne with Dylan Thomas of course and the walk to his writing studio was fab:

We didn't go in the house but you can peek through the window of Dylan's writing shed which had another inspiring view.

We passed a bench in a sunny spot and this plaque made me smile:

Any offers? I'll meet you there on Friday, the weather's looking good then!!

And if any of you would like to check out the beach where we live, there's now a live webcam at the front of the RNLI station which has a feed to YouTube, The link is here: - the high tide is 8.46m this morning at 08.26 (8.25m at 08.54 tomorrow)

Thanks for reading to the end! Hope you have a good week xx